With Bless Unleashed, the developer studio Neowiz and publisher Bandai Namco are set to launch an MMORPG for Xbox One. However, the community of Bless Online has hated the game since its announcement, as can be seen in the reactions.
Bless Online has polarized opinions. The MMORPG that many were waiting for did not meet expectations upon release on Steam. Announcing a new Bless game now is met with little understanding.
Hate could destroy an MMORPG before its release
The problems with Bless Online: The PC MMORPG Bless Online is not in the state that many players had hoped for. Bugs and poor performance are driving buyers to frustration. Bless Online is an Early Access version that is still to be optimized and improved. However, players show little trust in Neowiz.
Because the development of Bless Online has been plagued by problems:
- The original Western publisher Aeria Games dropped out.
- In Korea, there was strong criticism of the released version.
- The developers announced restructuring measures.
- Despite this, the currently released game still has many flaws.
Where does the hate for Bless Unleashed come from? When Neowiz and Bandai Namco announced Bless Unleashed a few weeks ago, players were bewildered. How could the studio announce a new MMORPG now when the old one is still in such poor condition?
So the hate focused on Bless Unleashed.
Additionally, the developers added fuel to the fire as Bless Online is a Buy2Play product, while Bless Unleashed is set to release for Xbox One with a Free2Play model. PC players cannot understand why they should pay for an MMO in poor condition while Xbox players receive a new product for free.
Furthermore, Bless players now fear that the money they spend on Bless Online is going into the development of Bless Unleashed and not being used to improve the PC version.
This is how the community reacts: Bless players are angry. Not only because of the state of Bless Online, which is still ongoing, but also because a new MMO is set to be released with Bless Unleashed that will receive a better engine, appears with a Free2Play model, and of course consumes resources that could have benefited Bless Online.
- Bless player Fratzo writes in his review on Steam: “The money that has been raised so far will not be used for the further development of Bless, but for a new game (Bless Unleashed) that is being released on Xbox. The game is just a scam and has no place on Steam!”
- MeinMMO reader John Wayne thinks: “The fundamental problem is not that the games are different, but that the funds intended for PC-Bless are now being thrown at an Xbox game.”
- Paralen963 on Reddit says: “At least we know why they are not fixing our version … they are porting it to UE4 for Xbox. I think now everyone can see that they abandoned that version a long time ago.”
A reboot was necessary
This is how the developers are steering against it: Neowiz and Bandai Namco repeatedly explain that Bless Online and Bless Unleashed are two different games that just happen to be set in the same world.
The story is different, the gameplay, the engine – Bless Unleashed is not Bless Online.
But the community is not interested. Players only see that despite the poor state of Bless Online, the revenues are now being used to develop a new game for Xbox One instead of improving the PC version.
Can Bless Unleashed be successful? With all the negativity currently raining down on the MMORPG, success is hard to see. The criticism is ongoing, and every article becomes a PR nightmare for Neowiz and Bandai Namco.
Presumably, the game will also be flooded with negative reviews at release – whether these are justified or not. Thus, Bless Unleashed could already have been dealt a fatal blow before its release.
